HOW FAKE FOOD IS MADE FOR THE MOVIES

Seeing something delicious like an ice cream or a lasagna in a movie can literally change your thoughts from “not hungry at all” to “I’m so hungry and I need to eat that, now” within seconds.

Spoiler alert: Food in movies and on TV are often fake. Those delicious looking doughnuts with the glistening chocolate and colourful sprinkles on top are actually made out of Styrofoam and are rock hard.

Why would fake food be used instead of real food? Well, if the set is hot because of the various lights used to film, food like ice creams or milkshakes will melt quickly and probably ruin the shot.

Fake food artists usually work from their studios where they can create pretty much anything. A lot of restaurants make use of these types of artists when they shoot commercials or for photo shoots when they are compiling new menu items.

While moulds are created for most of the items, a lot of general hardware products are used to make them come to life.

During the filming of an episode of Glee, one fake food artist had to make various different milkshakes where some of them were full, some of them were half full, some of them were quarter full and some of them were empty. Why all these different options? To indicate time when shooting. Prop masters will swap out the different milkshakes that could be seen in shots to indicate that time has passed.

Now that we know how often fake food is used on sets, we’ll definitely be looking at food used in movies and TV shows a lot differently.

Watch the Insider video below to see how fake food artists make fake food that end up looking like real food for movies and TV shows.

Image credit: WDBJ